Uzbekistan: April was the cruelest month
ICC Note:
“After a 5 April raid on his home by up to 10 police and secret police officers, Tashkent Protestant Anvar Rajapov was fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage for alleged proselytism, illegal religious meetings and illegal literature,” Forum 18 News Service reports.
By Mushfig Bayram
5/12/2011 Uzbekistan (Forum 18 News Service) – After a 5 April raid on his home by up to 10 police and secret police officers, Tashkent Protestant Anvar Rajapov was fined 80 times the minimum monthly wage for alleged proselytism, illegal religious meetings and illegal literature, Protestants told Forum 18 News Service. Judge Berdykilichev did not “even investigate the case but just signed the hastily and carelessly prepared decision”, Protestants complained to Forum 18. The judge ordered that the religious books confiscated in the raid be destroyed, “except for those that can be allowed for internal use of religious communities”. A member of Tashkent’s registered Baptist church, Konstantin Malchikovsky, faces up to two years’ imprisonment if a criminal case now with prosecutors goes ahead. He is accused of failing to use a cash register to record sales and donations to the church. In late April the congregation itself was given a massive fine for this. Church property was raided twice in April.
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